Hope and the Change

Vasiliev, you are finally wrong...

"Love and Pain are, unfortunately, utterly interconnected; that's the problem with this whole war thing, no one's ever going to win because, like it or not, our categorizations of what is Good and what is Bad are remarkably similar. It's a giant tangled knot, we're lying to ourselves when we think we can untangle it."

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We did not speak of it, the Change. The Metamorphosis of Mother to Devil Mother, the Conversion of Love to Spite, the Deeply, Deeply Horrible Change. I was thinking, the Change has happened, we know it has, let us not go back to it. I was thinking, I know I was wrong, and I'm sorry for it. I was thinking, I love her and I hate her, I'm so afraid, I'm so afraid, what is going on? I was thinking, F**k My Life.

 

I thought Father was thinking along the same lines, so I didn't speak to him of it.

 

But one day, during my last class, one of the Office Assistants scurried in and handed me a slip: Aden Wood is not to take the bus today. Aden Wood's father is to pick him up.

 

My heart skipped a beat.

 

Mother was dead.

 

Wasn't she? Why else would Father come? We vowed never to go there again--no, you vowed never to, he never said anything, Mother can't be dead. She can't be dead, it doesn't say anywhere that she's dead, you're making stupid assumptions. But why else would Father pick me up, it doesn't say why, she must be dead and he's driving you to the hospital to see her one last time, or the funeral, oh god oh god oh god.

 

I was mentally falling apart.

 

Father loaded me into the back of his SUV, and we glided out of the parking lot. I was having that feeling that they always had in books, you know, when the terrified, sorrowful mother can sense the death of her heroic son from across the ocean, and she's crying and hugging her husband because she knows he's dead without really knowing how, and it turns out he is dead he died in the tsunami, it's exactly like that only it's the other way around, I know she's dead, Mother has gone and died on us, from her tsunami of a disease.

 

We landed a graceful halt in the parking lot of the hospital. Neither Father nor I said anything, neither of us moved. Then he got out of the car. I followed suit. Then as he was walking towards the main entrance, I grabbed his sleeeve. "Is she dead?" I whispered.

 

"I think she's dead, but I can't help but check to make sure I'm right. I don't want to have buried her alive."

 

And then I understood. Mother was already dead. She'd died long ago. We knew that. But... but Father had loved her, I knew he had. He really, truly, honestly did. Every other Friday he would take her out to another place, find a new set of flowers to present her, eat dinner with her in yet another romantic restaurant, leave me home alone (which was blissful, actually).

 

It was the kind of love that was awe; Mother loved him, but Father loved her and was in infinite awe of her. The lowly mechanic admiring the intelligent English professor.

 

It wasn't True Love because True Love doesn't exist, where the couple spins around and sings and are so happy together, they completely fit exactly, they were presented to each other in the least like of circumstances, but a circumstance in which only their best qualities are obvious. That doesn't exist. But it was Love. It was definitely Love.

 

It made sense, really, that Father couldn't accept her death. It wasn't Relief of Sorrow that brought him here once again, it was Hope. Hope that Mother is still alive.

 

It made me think of Vehemence. And suddenly I realized: I have just found a mistake in Aleksandr Vasieliev's Bible-like book.

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Hope stood upon the platform, Queen of Queens, loved by all. Sprinkling flowers over the heads of her loving fans, she sang, "The war is not over yet, my dear people! We can always fight back! Hate may think he has won, but his confidence will be his demise! On we march!"

And in all her goodness the people worshiped her. And they were right to do so. In Hope there is no fault.

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Vasiliev, you are dangerously wrong. Hope can be very, very dangerous.

 

Thus were my thoughts as we entered the hospital.

Author's Note

Hope is as unpredictable as Ignorance, but unlike him, she is loved.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

The chapter was sad. To grasp death and the understanding of losing people is hard to write. You did. I like the girls thoughts and actions. A sad ending to the chapter.
Coyote